A man suspected in the deaths of four teenage girls in Lincoln County during the 1990s may have also been involved in at least three other homicide cases in Oregon, according to an investigator with the Lincoln County District Attorney's office.

Investigator Ron Benson said Tuesday during a news conference in British Columbia that Bobby Jack Fowler, who died in an Oregon prison in 2006, is a person of interest in the other investigations.

"We've identified three other cases in Oregon that he might be responsible for," Benson said. He did not offer specifics but said that Fowler was available and the circumstances were "interesting."

Late Monday, it was announced that Fowler was the lead suspect in the murders of Kara Leas, 16, and Jennifer Esson, 15, who disappeared in Lincoln County in January 1995, and is a person of interest in the murders of Melissa Sanders, 17, and Sheila Swanson, 19, both of Sweet Home. They were murdered in the Lincoln County in 1992.

But Benson's statement Tuesday morning was the first mention that he might also be involved in Oregon cases beyond Lincoln County.

In addition to the Oregon cases, Fowler is believed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to have killed 16-year-old Colleen MacMillen in Canada in 1974 after MacMillen left her house to hitchhike to a friend's.

Fowler died in Oregon while serving a 16-year sentence for kidnapping, attempted rape, sexual assault, coercion and menacing.

The two double homicide cases in Lincoln County bear a number of similarities to the cases in Canada. In each, the girls were walking or hitchhiking in a rural area and each of the bodies were found in rural wooded areas. Both Leas and Esson's hands were bound and they were strangled.

The bodies of Sanders and Swanson were too badly decomposed to determine the cause of death. The Canadian police have not revealed the cause of death in the MacMillen case.

Fowler is also a suspect in two cases in Canada from 1973. Gale Weys was last seen while hitchhiking. Her body was found six months later in a ditch. Pamela Darlington also disappeared in 1973. Her body was discovered near a boat launch.

There are 18 cases in Canada in what is known as the Highway of Tears. Thirteen girls or women disappeared while walking or hitchhiking on three rural Canadian highways. Five others remain missing. Fowler has been eliminated in eight of the cases, but remains a person of interest in the others.